Miami takes over at No. 1 and Notre Dame is out of the poll
The first in-season ballot of 2026 moved a great deal. Miami is up five to No. 1, Louisville is up ten to 14, Ole Miss is down nine to 18, and Notre Dame and SMU have dropped out entirely. Missouri and TCU are in. Michigan State beat an FCS team by 49 and appears on neither list.
Big Ten: 16-2 in Week 1
Michigan State: 1-0, unranked, no votes
The first in-season poll of 2026 is out and it moved more than a first poll usually does. Miami is No. 1. Louisville climbed ten spots. Ole Miss fell nine. Notre Dame and SMU are gone from the ballot entirely.
Notre Dame is the item with a Michigan State attachment. The Irish lost 38-10 at home to an unranked Wisconsin team, a week after losing 42-6 to Miami, and dropped out of the Top 25 after being ranked No. 3 in August. Michigan State plays at Notre Dame in Week 3.
Elsewhere: Michigan beat Western Michigan 17-9 and needed most of the afternoon to do it. Florida trailed Florida Atlantic by multiple scores in the fourth quarter at home and won 42-39. Louisville went to Oxford and beat Ole Miss by 22.
Michigan State beat Grambling State 56-7, is 1-0, and appears nowhere on either list below.
The Top 25, Week 2
Michigan State appears on neither list. The Spartans are 1-0 after beating an FCS opponent by 49 points, which is not a result that produces poll votes and was not expected to.
Eight Big Ten teams are ranked, the same number as in the preseason ballot. The conference’s highest-ranked team is no longer No. 1.
The results that moved the poll
What happened to Notre Dame
Notre Dame was ranked No. 3 in the preseason poll. It has now lost by 36 and by 28 in consecutive weeks, the second of those at home to a Wisconsin team that was unranked and picked in the lower half of the Big Ten.
No poll voter kept the Irish in the Top 25. They received enough votes to appear in the others-receiving-votes group, which is the standard place a preseason top-five team lands after two losses of that size.
The Michigan State connection
Michigan State plays at Notre Dame in Week 3. The game has been treated since the schedule was released as the first real measurement of the Nick Mansour era.
It is now a game between a 1-0 Michigan State team that has played one FCS opponent and a Notre Dame program that has lost two games by a combined 64 points. Neither of those descriptions was available in August.
Mansour was asked about Notre Dame twice on Sunday and declined both times, saying he had watched part of the Wisconsin game and had not thought about the matchup.
Players of the week
Mateer accounted for nine touchdowns in one game, seven of them on the ground on 22 carries. He also completed 78 percent of his passes. Oklahoma is ranked No. 8.
Maddox intercepted two passes and returned both for touchdowns. He was also named Big Ten Defensive Player of the Week, making him the only player to take both awards. Northwestern is unranked.
Iamaleava took the conference offensive award in his second season at UCLA. The Bruins host Michigan State in Week 8.
Maddox is the only player in the country to win a national and a conference award in the same week.
No Michigan State player won anything
Michigan State scored 56 points, gained 618 yards and recorded 18 tackles for loss, and no Spartan received a national or Big Ten weekly award.
That is the correct outcome and nobody in East Lansing has argued otherwise. Weekly awards are graded against opponent, and the opponent was an FCS program. Cam Edwards ran for 147 yards on 16 carries in a game that was decided by the second quarter. Leo Hannan completed 82 percent of his passes across 23 attempts.
It is worth one line because it shows what Saturday was worth outside this state, and because Michigan State has not had a player win a Big Ten weekly award in some time.
The board after Week 1
Holds the top spot from the preseason board. A wide receiver has not won the award since 1991.
Up two after throwing six touchdowns in Week 1. Ohio State holds the top two positions on the board.
Down one. Oregon is ranked third.
Down one. Texas is ranked sixth.
John Mateer’s nine-touchdown game did not put him on this board.
The conference after one weekend
Drops one spot despite winning, on Miami’s promotion. Julian Sayin threw six touchdowns and moved to second on the Heisman board. Ohio State has the top two names on that board.
Also down one without losing. Oregon plays at Michigan State in Week 12.
Holds fifth. Indiana is not on Michigan State’s 2026 schedule and is competing with Michigan State for at least two recruits on the Spartans’ board, including the No. 1 player in the country.
Beat Western Michigan 17-9 and moved up two anyway, because of what happened above them. The Wolverines scored 17 points at home against a MAC opponent.
Michigan State plays at Michigan in Week 10.
The only Big Ten team with two wins. Not on Michigan State’s 2026 schedule.
Up one. The program is in its first season after the dismissal of James Franklin, who is now at Virginia Tech. Not on Michigan State’s schedule.
Won at Notre Dame 38-10 and did not enter the poll, which is unusual and reflects how far Notre Dame’s ranking had already fallen in the voters’ estimation before the ballot was submitted.
Wisconsin is not on Michigan State’s 2026 schedule.
Safety Adrian Maddox returned two interceptions for touchdowns and won both the national and the Big Ten defensive award. Northwestern is not on Michigan State’s 2026 schedule.
Illinois and Purdue are the only Big Ten teams that lost in Week 1. Both are 0-1 and neither was ranked. Neither is on Michigan State’s 2026 schedule.
Washington is ranked 22nd and plays at Michigan State in Week 11. UCLA is unranked, and its quarterback Nico Iamaleava was the Big Ten offensive player of the week. Michigan State plays at UCLA in Week 8.
Where Michigan State sits
Michigan State beat Grambling State 56-7 in its home opener. The Spartans gained 618 yards, allowed five first downs, recorded 18 tackles for loss and committed one penalty.
None of that appears in the national conversation this week, and there is no reasonable argument that it should. Roughly thirty teams beat FCS opponents by comparable margins.
What did change for Michigan State this week happened in Indiana. The Week 3 game at Notre Dame was constructed by everyone, including this desk, as the point at which the Nick Mansour hire would first be measured against a serious opponent. Notre Dame has since been beaten by 36 and by 28 and has fallen out of the poll.
Michigan State hosts Eastern Michigan of the MAC at noon Saturday before that trip. Eastern Michigan is 1-1 and is quarterbacked by Noah Kim, who started for Michigan State in 2023.
Michigan needed sixty minutes to beat Western Michigan 17-9 in Ann Arbor on the same afternoon.
Where the sport stands
Poll. Miami is No. 1, up five. Ohio State No. 2, Oregon No. 3. Louisville up ten to 14, Ole Miss down nine to 18. Missouri and TCU are new. Notre Dame and SMU dropped out.
Awards. John Mateer of Oklahoma had a nine-touchdown game. Adrian Maddox of Northwestern returned two interceptions for touchdowns and won both defensive awards. No Michigan State player won anything.
Heisman. Jeremiah Smith holds first. Julian Sayin is up two to second after six touchdown passes.
Big Ten. Sixteen of 18 are 1-0. Illinois and Purdue are 0-1. USC is 2-0. Eight members are ranked. No conference games have been played.
Michigan State. 1-0, 0-0 in the Big Ten, unranked, no votes. Hosts Eastern Michigan at noon Saturday on Big Ten Network, then plays at Notre Dame in Week 3.
This page is part of a fictional media archive produced for a college-football dynasty simulation (CFB27). Outlets, writers, quotes and analysis are invented. Real programs and public figures appear as fictionalized in-universe references and nothing here represents a real statement, ranking or result.